Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Artisan Entertainment | Release Date: March 3, 2000 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Baltimore SunAnn Hornaday
A thoroughly absorbing, even transfixing, journey to a future that may already be upon us.
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
Jim Jarmusch has come up with something strange and amazing. Read full review
100
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
This infusion of warrior philosophy is the gas in Ghost Dog's tank, and Jarmusch pumps it up for maximum octane throughout. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A purely cinematic experience. You've got to see it, in other words, to understand.
90
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
Laced with brilliantly knotted ideas on race, masculinity and cults of violence. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesEric Harrison
It's a nearly pitch-perfect melding of genres, influences and modes of expression--it's the first Mafia movie for the hip-hop age. Read full review
90
Film.comPeter Brunette
What makes the film so special is that while tickling your postmodern funnybone, it never forgets to make you care for its characters, in a welcome, and almost traditional way. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
It's the kind of movie you wish you had more time to absorb and could see more than once before reviewing. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Perversely funny. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyTy Burr
The result has the dingy grace of pigeons flying across an urban wasteland. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Corliss
Niftily quirky.
75
TNT RoughCutSpencer H. Abbott
An ultra-violent cinematic rendering which will appeal to those moviegoers who like their action dramas laced with nice touches of meta-physicality and left-of-center humor.
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Weirdly intriguing. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Whitaker's acting is highly creative and Jarmusch's filmmaking is as elegant and original as ever. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
[Jarmusch's] most accessible film after "Night on Earth," yet it's still elliptical and enigmatic. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's fun, but not obvious fun.
75
New York PostJonathan Foreman
So filled with amusing, idiosyncratic touches and unexpectedly charming characters that you mostly don't mind its excesses.
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It's beautifully cast and filmed (cinematography by the matchless Robby Muller) and often quite moving, despite the fact that most of the characters are never developed much beyond mythic or parodic prototypes. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Every minute he's on screen, Whitaker makes Ghost Dog worth watching. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
[Jarmusch] seems...to introduce gratuitous bloodshed that is out of sync with the engaging, offbeat tempo and dark, comedic moral fable that has come before. Read full review
63
USA TodayStaff [Not Credited]
The movie is still too solemn.
63
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Best when it's playful, toying with the fact that the Mafia has in a single generation been transmogrified from myth to joke. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
A movie as laconic as its hero, Ghost Dog is nonetheless diminished by its most un-Zen-like attachment to this underlying sentimentality. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDana Stevens
There is a lot of violence, but not much action; a plot involving vengeance, jealousy and double-crossing, but not a great deal of suspense. Read full review
52
Mr. ShowbizMichael Atkinson
Likable, but frustratingly lazy, Ghost Dog has coolness running all through it, but little substance.
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
Am I the only one who finds the substance of this movie repulsive? Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Points for an interesting concept; demerits for the dull execution. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Jarmusch has never seemed quite this baffling -- or quite this dull.
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The gambits in Ghost Dog seem simply like literary and cinematic games devoid of any larger meaning. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's too bloody to be funny and too silly to be dramatic and too self-indulgent to be anything other than what it is, one more bad movie. Read full review
12
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
It's too cryptic and unfulfilled to serve as a tool for anything beyond its own obfuscation. Read full review
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